Connectivity giant Cisco has announced the availability of Duo Passwordless Authentication to help customers protect Single Sign On (SSO) applications.
Users can now log in without an alphanumeric password by leveraging biometrics such as Windows Hello and Mac touch ID, as well as security keys, while the Duo Mobile app has also now been added as a new option for passwordless authentication.
Cisco said this will help simplify implementation, lower the total cost of ownership for customers, and better meet the needs of end-users.
The move comes as the connectivity giant’s '2022 Duo Trusted Access Report' revealed that biometrics were enabled on 81% of mobile devices among Duo customers, while monthly multi-factor authentications grew 38% annually.
“Passwordless authentication reduces the risk of phisihing attacks and their ability to utilise stolen passwords or as we’ve seen more recently, MFA fatigue,” said Dave Lewis, global advisory CISO at Cisco.
“As cyber attacks continue to move closer to end-users, there is a huge opportunity to embrace low-friction authentication methods that ensure only trusted users and devices gain access to applications and corporate resources.”
The addition is one of several new capabilities across Cisco’s security portfolio. These include the addition of Secure Firewall 3105 to the Secure Firewall 3100 series, which expands existing size options for branch offices at a more convenient price point.
The offering aims to provide support for more remote users and increase VPN speed and performance by 17 times, Cisco said.
Cisco Capital is also now offering Cisco Lifecycle Pay for Secure Firewall, a fixed-term subscription payment solution to help provide a lower total cost of usage without ownership. Customers can also receive a ten percent replacement incentive when returning their existing firewall hardware and upgrading to Cisco’s qualifying tech.
As more customers shift critical resources to the cloud, authentications were found to have increased by 24% this year. In response, Cisco has enhanced its cloud-based Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) platform Umbrella with stronger data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities – including unified policies and reporting across API-based out-of-band DLP, and real-time inline DLP.
Partners can now also achieve Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) specialisation to highlight their abilities with Cisco’s integrated networking and security architecture.
Cisco said these new features will help its platform safeguard users, devices and applications across public clouds and private data centres, without public cloud lock-in.
“Security is no longer optional. It is critical to every major initiative an organisation may have,” said Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM of security and collaboration at Cisco.
“We are committed to delivering more value for our partners by continuing to drive innovation and making it easier to do business with Cisco. Partners can land key products and then expand across the Cisco Secure portfolio to increase profitability while enabling customers to securely achieve their digital transformation goals.”
